Dual Boot XP Pro and Linux Ubuntu? How Do I Do It?

[Mike]

Mike napisal(a):
first it depends on current disc state. If there is no data on it you
can use anything avaiable, you can run any LiveCD Linux and use command
line tools like
- fdisk (linux's not MS's)
- cfdisk (same as above but with nicer pseudoGUI)
- DiscDruid (on most fedora CDs, GUI)
- many onther, depending on distro
after partitioning there are linux tools to format these partitions like
- mkfs.ext2 (formats partition to ext2, -j switch formats to ext3)
- mkfs.ntfs
and many others. In fact all are wrappers to mkfs (man mkfs to see all
avaiable options). You can find man pages online. Just google

If there are data on disc using parted is reasonable.
parted is opensource tool similar to partition magic, you can download
bootable liveCD with gparted which has nice GUI (parted itself is
command line)
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

80GB HDD with XP installed. for now the plan - partition for Ubuntu,
patition for Ubuntu swap and other Ubuntu relaTED software
and a FAT32 partition for data shared between Ubuntu and XP. I've got PM
but think I'll try gparted.

 

[NoStop]

Hi, I just loaded XP Pro on a Dell SX270 2.70GHZ, 2GB RAM and 80GB HDD.
I've decided I want to set up the PC for dual boot w/ Ubuntu. I can
partition the HDD
w/ partition Magic or whatever recommendations I get. I don't want to use
a partition by loading
Boot Magic which is included w/ Partition Magic. The HDD is just one
partition now after
installing Ubuntu I want to create another partition for XP data.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Mike

Mike,

Here is what I suggest you do in this order ...

1) Use partition magic to reduce the size of your existing NTFS partition.
You'll have to decide how large you want that to be to accomodate what's
there now and for future needs under XP.

2) Create a FAT32 partition that you'll use later as a way to share data
between your XP and Ubuntu systems. This might be something like MP3s, text
files, etc. Both o/s's will be able to read and write to that FAT32
partition.

3) Leave the rest of your hard drive unallocated. You should allow at least
12GB for Ubuntu. That's more than enough, but it'll give you some healthy
room should you find you're using Ubuntu alot and storing data to it.

4) Boot up the Ubuntu LiveCD and get to the Ubuntu desktop. There you'll see
an Install icon. Double click it and the installation will start. You might
want to play around in the LiveCD for a while to make sure that Ubuntu has
properly recognized your hardware. You'll let Ubuntu install it's required
partitions on the free space of your hard drive. It will create 2
partitions: an ext3 partition that will hold your root filesystem and a
Linux swap partition that is used for virtual memory. It will also install
in your MBR of your disk GRUB which is a bootloader.

When you boot your computer, GRUB will allow you to select whether you wish
to boot into Ubuntu or XP.

Welcome to the world of GNU/Linux. You've chosen a very nice Linux distro
that I'm sure you're going to be very happy with - the more so once you
start gaining some experience using it and understanding how it all works.
You'll eventually find that you'll be spending more of your time within
Ubuntu than XP. You'll appreciate no longer needing to concern yourself
with the insecurity of XP and the need for wasting time doing things like
defragging your hard drive. You'll also appreciate having access to over
18,000 software packages that are easy to install using Synaptic.


Cheers.


--
Linux is ready for the desktop! More ready than Windoze XP.
http://tinyurl.com/ldm9d

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